Origins of the International Socialists

by Abbie Bakan and Philip Murton

Originally published in Marxism: A Socialist Annual, Volume 4
(2006). Posted on the Socialist History Project website by permission
of the authors. For information on purchasing or subscribing to
Marxism, write PO Box 339, Station E, Toronto ON M6H 4E3

The International Socialists (IS) was founded at a meeting held in
Toronto in February of 1975. In the more than three decades that have
followed, the left and the workers’ movement in Canada have experienced
many ups and downs, successes and failures. The IS has been a part of
that experience, and the period of its modest, early beginnings was a
moment of tremendous change for the left.

Those who were to become the initial organizers of the IS in Canada
came together originally as a study group of students and a few workers
who were attracted to, and met each other in, the Ontario Waffle
Movement for an Independent Socialist Canada (MISC). The Waffle was
originally a left wing caucus of the NDP, active from 1969 to 1974, that
expressed a serious effort to form an effective left alternative to
social democracy in Canada. The origins of the IS are inextricably
linked to the rise and fall of the Waffle both inside and outside the
NDP.

The study group that was to become the International Socialists
formed in the period 1974-1976. This was at the peak of a period of
tremendous confidence for the workers’ movement and the left. In Canada,
it was two years after the 1972 Quebec General Strike — the largest
general strike in Canada’s history to that date — and marked the high
point of a decade of rising militancy.[1] As Paul
Kellogg has described it:

Three great strike waves punctuated the decade of 1966 to 1976,
each one greater than the last. The first peaked in 1966 with nearly
a quarter of Canadian unionists on strike during the year, the
second in 1972 when one in two Canadian unionists walked the picket
line at some point during the year. Living standards rose steadily.
In 1965, living standards were 9 percent above their level in 1961.
In 1973 this reached 35 percent and in 1977, living standards peaked
at nearly 46 percent above their 1961 level.[2]

But these were also years of frustration. It was a period when the
NDP had propped up a Liberal minority federal government under Pierre
Elliot Trudeau, elected in October of 1972. The employers’ offensive was
launched in 1975 with the wage controls policy of the federal Liberal
government, supported by NDP provincial governments in BC and
Saskatchewan. Trade union leaders supported the NDP and halted rank and
file militancy — most starkly in BC — and laid the ground for a vicious
employers’ offensive that would ultimately reverse the tide of workers’
gains.

Those active in the Waffle at the time did not know that the spirit
of radicalism that inspired them — among tens of thousands — was like a
wave on a beach. And in 1974-76 the tide was beginning to ebb. The
Waffle, a left alternative to the NDP, expressed the high point of this
wave. But its leadership was not able to carry it forward and navigate
the changing political climate.

Instead, once the Waffle left the NDP, the leadership expected the
NDP to collapse and the Waffle to grow and take its place. Jim and Bob
Laxer, leading figures in the Waffle, were committed to "an independent
socialist Canada". Canada was understood to be a dependency of the US,
and it was expected that only a socialist movement based in the working
class could free Canada from the grip of US imperialism.[3]

This was an analysis that the members of the study group agreed with
in broad strokes. There was, however, a frustration that the socialist
side of the perspective was being marginalized, dulling the radical edge
of the Waffle’s politics as soon as the organization was independent of
the NDP. The International Socialists was formed in an effort to take a
revolutionary socialist path, veering left from social democracy and
left nationalism.

Waffle and the NDP

The Waffle came together shortly before the 1969 NDP federal
convention.[4] Its manifesto, The Waffle Manifesto
for an Independent Socialist Canada,[5] was
supported by about one-third of the votes at that Convention. The name
"Waffle" originates from the comment of an unidentified supporter, in
response to the claim that this group of NDPers were prone to "waffle":
"If we’re going to waffle, I’d rather waffle to the left than waffle to
the right."[6]

The Waffle was very much affected by the left of the period. The
formative events included: the rise of a "New Left", which was seen as
an alternative to social democracy and to the pro-Moscow Communist Party
(CP); the "Quiet Revolution" in Quebec; the movement against the war in
Vietnam; and the growing influence of the women’s liberation movement.[7]
Also, there was a rise of Canadian nationalism on the left in English
Canada, as Kari Levitt’s Silent Surrender became a particularly
influential book.[8] This coincided with a rise in
nationalism from above, within the Canadian state. In 1968, a federal
task force on foreign ownership had an important impact. It was led by
Mel Watkins, a professor of economics at the University of Toronto who
would later emerge as a leading figure in the Waffle.

The locus for this new radicalization at the time was the New
Democratic Party (NDP). The NDP was formed in 1961 as a joint project of
the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and the Canadian Labour
Congress (CLC). The party, while attracting the interests of trade
unionists and left activists, had not yet made a significant
breakthrough in Canadian politics. Broadly, the Waffle was an attempt to
bring some of these progressive forces together in hopes of revitalizing
the NDP.

Some quotations from The Manifesto express the character of the new
movement:

Our aim as democratic socialists is to build an independent
socialist Canada. Our aim as supporters of the New Democratic Party
is to make it a truly socialist party.

The New Democratic Party must be seen as the parliamentary wing
of a movement dedicated to fundamental social change. It must be
radicalized from within and it must be radicalized from without.

Further statements from The Manifesto indicate the analysis:

The major threat to Canadian survival today is American control
of the Canadian economy. The major issue of our times is not
national unity but national survival, and the fundamental threat is
external, not internal.

Canada’s membership in the American alliance system and the
ownership of the Canadian economy by American corporations precludes
Canada’s playing an independent role in the world.

The Waffle, however, also encompassed analytical contradictions.
While defending "Canada" as an undifferentiated national entity against
the supposed threat of American domination, it was also unambiguous in
asserting that Quebec was an oppressed nation.

Quebec’s history and aspirations must be allowed full expression
and implementation in the conviction that new ties will emerge from
the common perception of "two nations, one struggle." Socialists in
English Canada must ally themselves with socialists in Quebec in
this common cause.

Also, the Waffle’s politics were different from many of those in the
New Left, in the importance given to the role of trade unions and the
working class:

[C]entral to the creation of an independent socialist Canada is
the strength and tradition of the Canadian working class and the
trade union movement. The revitalization and extension of the labour
movement would involve a fundamental democratization of our society.

Several events in 1971 were central to the Waffle’s influence. Most
significantly, in April of that year, Jim Laxer ran as the Waffle
candidate for the leadership of the federal NDP against the
establishment candidate, David Lewis. In a surprising outcome, Jim Laxer
earned almost 40 percent of the vote on a fourth ballot.[9]
A key feature of this campaign was the Waffle’s support for Quebec’s
right to self-determination. The position was supported as a democratic
right, up to and including the right to form an independent Quebec
state.

The Waffle was also expanding its influence in the labour movement.
It was active in supporting several significant strikes, including
Texpack and Artistic Woodwork that were fighting strike-breaking
companies, and led by unions linked to the Council of Canadian Unions (CCU).[10]
In January 1971, the Waffle sponsored a conference in Windsor, Ontario,
challenging the Auto Pact. The Waffle leadership maintained this was a
corporate trade deal harmful to Canadian workers. The conference
attracted several hundred trade unionists from the international United
Auto Workers (UAW).[11] The Waffle’s activities in the
trade union movement began to provoke the ire of Dennis McDermott of the
United Automotive Workers (UAW).[12]

In the spring of 1971, the Ontario provincial election saw the NDP
drop by one seat and Bill Davis’ Progressive Conservatives increase the
party’s majority. One Waffle candidate, Steve Penner, almost won a seat
in the Toronto riding of Dovercourt. By early 1972, the Ontario NDP was
looking for a scapegoat.

Expulsion from the NDP

The Provincial Council meeting of the Waffle in March 1972 was
presented with a resolution from the NDP leadership, calling for the
Waffle’s expulsion. This was backed by many of the trade union
delegates. The council determined to set up a committee to prepare a
statement outlining the responsibilities and obligation of NDP members.[13]

From March until the next council meeting in June 1972 in Orillia,
the Waffle was on the defensive. Its members were forced to argue for
their right to exist as a left current within the NDP. The trade union
leadership was particularly insistent about the need to dissolve the
Waffle. Lynn Williams, for example, Director of District 6 of the United
Steel Workers of America (USWA), played a central role in carrying the
hard line. Stephen Lewis, Ontario NDP leader, also went on the attack:
"I too wish to fight for a free Canada but without the Waffle forever an
encumbrance around my neck."[14] The Waffle was seen
as too radical, and potentially too "confusing" to voters, especially
when the dominant strategy was to show that the NDP was a moderate party
capable of "responsible governance."

At the June Council meeting, a "compromise" resolution from the
Toronto Riverdale riding gave the NDP leadership the "means to deal with
the Waffle". This resolution had the same effect as the executive
motion, though the language used was less harsh. The resolution demanded
that the Waffle disband as an organized group within the NDP. It stated
categorically that "The present structure and behaviour of the Waffle
cannot continue."[15] The resolution was passed by a
vote of 217 to 88 at the Ontario NDP June provincial council meeting
held in Orillia, Ontario.

Explaining the Attack

There are two important reasons for the Ontario NDP actions in
forcing the Waffle to either liquidate or face expulsion. First, the NDP
officialdom was, and remains, dedicated primarily to gaining seats in
the federal and provincial Parliaments. The quest for electability was
challenged by a vibrant left wing that was committed to social activism,
rank and file trade union struggle, and to the creation of a climate of
political debate to the left of the NDP brass.

A second key element in the attack on the Waffle stemmed from the
trade union full time bureaucracy, the backbone of the NDP leadership.
The Waffle succeeded in gaining some support from activists in the major
trade unions, particularly the UAW and the United Steelworkers of
America (USWA), who were prepared to act independently of the
bureaucratic union leadership. In this period of the 1970s, unions saw a
rapid growth of contract rejections and rising rank and file confidence.
The Waffle’s left nationalist analysis was misplaced, presuming that the
bureaucratic character of the unions was specific to those with US
links. But the call for democracy and militancy fell on welcoming ears
among a wide layer of labour activists. It was the Waffle’s orientation
to rank and file workers that worried union officials like McDermott of
UAW and Williams of USWA.[16]

The Waffle called a special conference in August 1972 to discuss its
future. There were two strategic positions on offer: either to form a
new independent organization outside the NDP, or to "stay and fight" by
remaining in some form inside the NDP.[17] The former
orientation was supported by Jim Laxer, his father Robert Laxer, and
most of the Waffle leadership. They argued for an orientation to leave
aside the battles inside the NDP to a later date when the NDP might
become radicalized. The suggestion at the time was not to build an
alternative political party or run in elections, but to build a
movement, the Movement for an Independent Socialist Canada (MISC).

The "stay and fight" group argued that the Waffle should stay in the
Ontario NDP and challenge the bureaucratic hold of the NDP leadership.
They proposed that the Waffle strategy should be "to fight for a revolt
of the riding associations." They quite correctly identified the threat
that the Waffle had become to the trade union leadership. The
possibility of an activist left wing in the NDP with important
connections with the rank and file of unions would, it was claimed,
undermine the relationship between the NDP leadership and the labour
brass. They maintained that the Waffle outside the NDP would "reduce us
to a sterile sect isolated from the existing mass constituency for
socialism" (namely the NDP). They also spoke of the need to "expose the
nature of the bureaucratic structure of the NDP which co-opts class
struggle into purely parliamentary channels."[18]

Coming after months of internal fights in the NDP, the leadership
strategy to build a new current independent of the party had
considerable appeal, inspiring a fresh start. The "stay and fight"
current was influenced by orthodox Trotskyism. The tactic of entry —
working inside the NDP as a distinctly socialist current with a view of
division at a later point — was elevated to a fixed principle. The wave
of working class radicalization that had in fact formed the Waffle, and
was now well to the left of the NDP, was below the radar screen.[19]
The decision to leave the NDP was adopted by a vote of 213-113. In
December 1972, Waffle-MISC was formed as an independent organization
outside of the Ontario NDP. At the Ontario NDP Convention that same
month, those remaining in the NDP attempted to challenge the NDP
leadership without much success.

The Waffle was a relatively large and non-sectarian group in the NDP,
and it offered tremendous promise. It was the most important left wing
force in and around the NDP for a generation, unmatched until the
emergence of the New Politics Initiative (NPI) in 2001.[20]
But a profound lack of political clarity led the Waffle first to
stumble, and then to crash, when it came to taking the next steps in
building a viable socialist organization in Canada.

Marx Out of the Closet

The Ontario Waffle Movement for an Independent Socialist Canada held
a convention in Toronto in December of 1973. This was the first Waffle
meeting attended for many who were to become the original founders of
the IS in Canada. It was addressed by Jim Laxer,[21]
who gave a confident presentation on the need for a radical left
alternative to the social democratic NDP. The NDP was considered doomed.
"It’s time", he announced, "for us to take Marx out of the closet." This
is when discussion began about founding a new political party, with bold
plans to replace the NDP as an electoral force.

The Waffle soon committed itself to forming a new socialist party
that could attract masses of ordinary people in Canada — workers, women,
the poor — and build a genuine alternative to capitalism. There was a
very active labour caucus, where some influential rank and file workers
from the Steelworkers, the United Auto Workers (today the Canadian Auto
Workers), nurses and teachers played an active role.[22]
The trade union work was led by Robert Laxer, a professor at the Ontario
Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) and formerly a leader of the
Communist Party of Canada.[23]

The new Waffle soon attracted young people and workers influenced by
the climate of radical change and looking for a sane left alternative to
capitalism and social democracy. But for many of those who wanted to
become involved in this exciting project, the Waffle was a difficult
organization to join and an even harder one to influence. Modeled on the
structures of the NDP, the Waffle formally had local neighbourhood
constituencies and elected representatives. It was unclear, however,
exactly how decisions were made. Many members of the Waffle had never
actually left the NDP, rendering leadership accountability and
membership input very far from transparent. And for those who were young
and angry at capitalism, it was very difficult to participate in a
meaningful way. In practice, there was an inner circle that directed the
path of the Waffle. Jim and Bob Laxer and those close to them —
personally and politically — were the most influential.[24]
Friends and family of the Laxers seemed to shape every change of policy
or direction, every educational activity, every speaker, and every
agenda item at every meeting. Informally, this circle was referred to
rather unaffectionately as the "family compact".

Among those who would eventually found the International Socialists
in Canada, the majority were undergraduate students at York University
in Toronto and members of the Waffle (MISC). These were young activists
and intellectuals, highly engaged in debates on the left. They
participated in university classes taught by Marxist professors, some of
whom were members of the Waffle.[25] These students
were excited by the prospect of building a new party for socialism. They
formed the York University Waffle and organized regular weekly
discussions.

Members of the York Waffle and some similarly frustrated members of
the labour caucus came together in 1974 to form a discussion circle
committed to a socialist alternative. They had a structure of weekly
meetings organized around common readings, sharing articles and trying
to discuss constructive means to ensure that the Waffle survived and
grew to meet the potential of the radical climate.

In this little socialist study group, comprised at its peak of about
13 people, there was a desperate thirst for political clarity. The
members were committed to socialist education, and they read everything
they could find. Weekly discussions, planned in advance with selected
topics, readings and assignments to introduce the material, took place
in a very organized manner. Discussions alternated between topics
related to "programmatic" issues and others addressing broader themes. A
discussion plan for the summer of 1974 read as follows:

June 9, Canadian Bourgeoisie, Waffle, the Party and the
Revolution; June 16, Socialism in One Country; June 28, Nationalism
and the Relation of Party and Class; June 30, Permanent Revolution;
July 7, Women Under Capitalism; July 14, Popular Fronts and Party
Building; July 21, Quebec; July 28, Fascism and also Regional
Disparities; August 4, the NDP; August 11, Soviet Union; August 18,
Trade Unions; August 25, Russian Revolution; September 1, Students;
September 8, Trotskyism and Stalinism; September 15, Canadian Left;
September 22, The Waffle; September 29, Evaluation of the series to
date.[26]

In addition to weekly readings and discussions, the study group
members were active in the Waffle, which was their first loyalty. They
participated in strike solidarity organized by the Waffle—particularly
the long and bitter strike at Artistic Woodwork. And the York Waffle
members of the study group planned, edited and produced a mimeographed
internal educational journal for the Ontario Waffle, first published in
the fall of 1973, called Advance: For Independence and Socialism.

Political life within the Waffle was tense and frustrating. Members
of the study group felt a need to be "underground" in the Waffle for
fear of reprisals.[27] Some notes introducing a
discussion on how to move the Waffle forward are indicative of the
experience:

In the Waffle, the small ... leadership clique employs personal
criteria at many levels, where political leadership requires
political criteria: ie., the general membership are expected to show
personal allegiance and personal responsibility to the top
leadership, rather than to the rank and file, and to support the
predominant top leadership line ... . Grounds for expulsion are
failure to adhere to the line, and methods are essentially skillful
bureaucratism — rather than being expelled by either principled or
unprincipled means, the leadership can and does effectively make it
impossible for a Waffler to be either effective or influential in
any Waffle functions ... . Gossip plays an important function in the
Waffle because it fills the vacuum of principled criticism, on the
one hand, and acts as a powerful tool of the Waffle secret service
on the other ... . Rather than providing political grounds for
membership, all new students, intellectuals, lefties and Americans,
if they become active, are subject to strict surveillance within the
movement.[28]

But the orientation of the Waffle to the working class was welcome
and celebrated. In the same notes:

Bob Laxer is essentially the Waffle’s commissar in charge of
working class liaison in just about every sense. The labour
committee represents the life of the Waffle because it is the point
where the Waffle has real contact with the class it is to serve. It
is the only committee in which petty-bourgeois personalism will not
be tolerated for either subjective or objective reasons.[29]

July 1974 Federal Election

The turning point was the July 1974 federal election, when the Waffle
ran several candidates, all in Ontario, on their own ticket for seats in
Parliament: Jim Laxer in York West, the north west region of Toronto;
Mary Campbell in London; and Bela Egyed in Ottawa. The campaigns
produced results that were statistically unmeasureable, and the
frustration among a wide layer of Waffle members was by now running
high. The election literature that came off the presses with the Waffle
endorsement, especially for the Toronto campaign, emphasized Canadian
nationalism, full stop.

The study group members, among many other Wafflers, came to the view
that the organization could not survive without a serious assessment and
change of course. The members of the study group wrote a report
assessing the election campaign in Toronto. This touched a nerve, and
opened up a debate with considerable resonance among the Waffle
membership.[30] The statement maintained:

The Waffle’s participation in the 1974 federal election
represents our most ambitious and critical activity since we have
been an independent political movement ... [T]hough the Toronto
Waffle election campaign achieved several valuable goals, from a
socialist perspective it fell far short of its potential. We contend
that the Toronto campaign was oriented to the achievement of
‘credibility’ in capitalist electoral terms, rather than to the
building of the Waffle and of a working class base. The major
emphasis was on gaining the maximum number of votes, rather than on
raising the anti-imperialist consciousness and militancy of the
workers in York West. This was reflected in the focus of our
literature, the presentation of our programme, and the
organizational strategy of the campaign.[31]

The document called for "a detailed, provincial-wide evaluation of
the Waffle’s participation in the federal election", and for the
regularly scheduled Provincial Council meeting in September to devote "a
major portion" of its agenda to this discussion.

This 12 page, single spaced document, entitled "Lessons of the
Toronto Waffle Election Campaign", was collectively crafted over weeks
of discussion. There was considerable concern to pose a constructive
debate, but this was accompanied by a sense of anxiety that the Waffle
leadership’s response would be defensive and punitive. The document was
strategically signed by two members only — Treat Hull and David McNally
— hoping this would minimize the defensive and repressive response of
the leadership that arose with every hint of debate. Unfortunately, the
anticipation of the leadership’s response was confirmed, but it is not
clear if the two-signature strategy served to minimize the vitriol that
followed.

Analyzing the Waffle (MISC)

After months of participation in the Waffle, extensive study of the
socialist tradition and detailed discussion and debate, the study group
members concluded that the Waffle had only partially broken from its
social democratic roots as a left current inside the NDP. The
overwhelming intellectual project that defined the study group concerned
revolutionary theory and organization. Lenin and Leninism were key
issues of debate. The Waffle was attractive largely because it was
rooted in the struggles of ordinary working people, and appealed to the
broad population. But there was also a clear need for a strategy that
was revolutionary, and Lenin’s theory and practice pointed in this
direction. While attracted to many of Lenin’s original writings, the
study group’s experiences with Leninists in Canada were universally
distasteful. Members of the existing Leninist parties and organizations
were seen to be hopelessly sectarian, and sported an attitude of
self-proclaimed importance.

The study group concluded that the Waffle was a "centrist" formation,
socialist and in fact Marxist in words, but in practice committed to
reforming capitalism rather than to revolution. In coming to this
analysis, an article by Leon Trotsky, written in 1934, was particularly
helpful:

One must understand, first of all, the most characteristic traits
of modern centrism. That is not easy; first because centrism, due to
its organic amorphousness, yields with difficulty to a positive
definition; it is characterized to a much greater extent by what it
lacks than by what it embraces. Secondly, never has centrism played
to such an extent as now with all the colours of the rainbow,
because never yet have the ranks of the working class been in such
ferment as at the present time. Political ferment, by the very
essence of the term, means a realignment, a shift between two poles,
Marxism and reformism, that is, the passing through various stages
of centrism.[32]

The study group members were influenced first and foremost by Marx.
But there were other influences as well, including Mao Zedong, Franz
Fanon, Paulo Freire, Jean-Paul Sartre, Herbert Marcuse, feminism and
Canadian left nationalism. Two works proved to be particularly
formative.

One was an article by Antonio Carlo, titled "Lenin on the Party",
published in Telos: A Journal of Radical Social Theory.[33]
Carlo argued against the popular claim that Lenin’s notion of the party
was universally elitist, demonstrating that the Bolsheviks’
organizational approaches changed with varying conditions in Tsarist and
revolutionary Russia. This was an important theoretical and historical
position, and proved very helpful in differentiating various
interpretations of Lenin as they were applied to modern conditions.

The second influential work was a collection of four articles
published in a little book called Party and Class that was sold
in a socialist book shop on Yonge Street.[34] The
authors were Tony Cliff, Duncan Hallas, Chris Harman and Leon Trotsky.
The collection was published by Pluto Press for the International
Socialists in the UK, predecessor of the Socialist Workers Party.[35]

Chris Harman’s article, entitled similarly "Party and Class",
stressed Lenin’s unique understanding that working class consciousness
is uneven and changing. He argued that for Lenin, the revolutionary
party was the organization of the advanced minority of the working
class, but that this advanced minority was not static. It changed over
time and circumstances. According to this view, revolutionaries are
forced to be a minority when capitalist ideas are dominant in the
working class, but the mass of the working class, with all its mixed
consciousness, remains the prime audience for socialist ideas. Following
Marx, the revolutionary potential of the working class is a
characteristic of all working classes, regardless of their particular
consciousness at any given moment in history. Changes in consciousness,
however, sometimes rapid, sometimes gradual, including advances and
retreats, are characteristic of class struggle.

Harman also outlined how social democratic parties depend upon the
passivity of the working class, and look to elected parliamentary
leaders as the key to social transformation. Inevitably, he wrote,
social democratic parties appear to be formally democratic, but are in
fact led in an elitist, top-down manner.

Harman stressed that a Leninist conception of the party drew a
distinction between the revolutionary party and the mass of the working
class, a distinction that was commonly blurred on the left, and created
a tendency to "substitutionism".

Tony Cliff, in another article in the Party and Class collection,
addressed this issue:

The fact that a revolutionary party is at all needed for the
socialist revolution shows that there is an unevenness in the level
of culture and consciousness of different sections and groups of
workers ... Because the unevenness in consciousness and culture is
smaller in the advanced countries than it was in Russia [in Lenin’s
time], the relative size of the party should be even larger than it
was in Russia ... . From this it is clear that little groups cannot
in any way substitute for the mass revolutionary party, not to say
for the mass of the working class.[36]

The clarity of these arguments was enormously refreshing. And beyond
the content of the writings, there was an organization that was
committed to this perspective. Members of the study group wrote to the
publishers at "SW Litho" and tried to get someone’s attention. After
months of unanswered correspondence, eventually there was some exchange
of information. Canadian contacts were at the time mainly steered
towards the IS in the US, which generated a story in itself.[37]

From this point on, study group members started to read everything
available that was written and published by the IS in Britain. It was a
challenge to locate titles at the time, as distribution in Canada was
limited. The experience of reading this material was like finding
like-minded writers who had come to the same conclusions, but with a
capacity to link the lessons of the revolutionary tradition in a
non-dogmatic, informed manner to modern conditions. This capacity was
virtually unknown in Canadian socialist literature at the time.

It was profoundly attractive to discover a tradition that was
revolutionary, and identified with Lenin and the early Bolshevik Party
in the first years of the Russian revolution, but that rejected without
apology any adherence to Stalinism. There was no effort to defend the
so-called socialist countries of the time — including Russia and China —
as workers’ states, whether deformed or degenerated. The theory of
Stalinism as a state capitalist counter-revolution against the early
successes of the Russian working class was key to the approach.[38]

Despite this identification with the writings of IS members in
Britain, the roots of the IS were not in Europe. The IS in Canada
emerged from the debates and developments in the Canadian workers’
movement and the Canadian left. Activists in Canada were very much on
their own, and proceeded to develop theory and strategies within the
Waffle. The hope was to steer a course to the left, and reverse the
pattern of declining morale and loss of members that had characterized
the Waffle experience since its break from the NDP.

Left Nationalism, Stalinism and the Popular Front

Once outside the NDP the leadership of the Waffle moved rapidly to
the right. Though the slogan of the Waffle was "for independence and
socialism", it was the former that was considered primary. The logic of
left nationalism — a legacy that has haunted the Canadian left for
decades — was clearly expressed in the Waffle’s early political
degeneration.

In an article entitled "The Waffle and Alliances for Independence",
published in Advance in April of 1974, Bob Laxer articulated the
perspective. Canada was understood as a dependency of the US, and
anti-imperialism therefore meant opposing US capital in Canada. All
allies who opposed US imperialism in any way were expected inevitably to
be drawn to a working class perspective that could only be implicitly
socialist. Socialism, which was seen as public ownership, was expected
to follow automatically from a nationalist perspective. There were two
stages in this process: independence first and socialism second. It was
considered a dangerous error to alter either the social content of the
stages or the order of their occurrence. In Bob Laxer’s words:

The history of Canadian politics in the last 20 or 30 years is a
history of defeat for English Canadian nationalists. This has
happened in every party. Walter Gordon and Eric Kierans lost out in
the Liberal Party to continentalists Pearson, Trudeau, Sharp, and
Turner. Diefenbaker was defeated by US apologist Dalton Camp, while
Davis and Lougheed are the dominant figures in the Tory party. In
the NDP, the Waffle was driven out by the top bureaucrats in the
American unions and the continentalists like the Lewises ... . If
this is the case, then in terms of alliances we have much more in
common with Eric Kierans, in his strong opposition to the US oil and
mining companies and his recognition of the need for their take-over
through public ownership, than we have with groups on the
pseudo-left ... . There is no left, there can be no left in Canada
that is not first and foremost against continentalism as the
priority point on its agenda — and this includes continentalism on
the trade union front ... . The people of Canada will listen to us,
with our particular program for independence, if we are in the van
of the development of nationalist slogans and actions. We will have
to be in the thick of it, known as we have already become known, as
the most strongly nationalist political group in Canada.[39]

At the time, it seemed obvious to young activists that Bob Laxer was
influenced by Stalinism, though he claimed to have broken from it
entirely. What was not known to most Wafflers then, but has since been
documented by Jim Laxer in his autobiographical study, Red Diaper
Baby: A Boyhood in the Age of McCarthyism, was that Bob Laxer was a
leading paid organizer for the Communist Party at the height of
Stalinism.[40] The elder Laxer was a veteran of World
War II, and an advocate of the CP’s popular front strategy. This was a
perspective that subordinated all independent working class action to
the nationalist policies of capitalist states around the world at the
time.[41]

Jim Laxer describes his father as an advocate of nationalist
policies, more staunch even than the rest of the leadership of the
Communist Party (called the Labour-Progressive Party, or LPP, in 1943,
after being banned in 1940). Two years before Bob Laxer left the CP
among the wave of resignations of 1956, he "presented a lengthy paper"
arguing that the party "should make the struggle for Canadian
independence the centerpiece of its orientation."[42]
Jim Laxer continues:

Although he was not demoted from the Central Committee as a
consequence, his paper was rejected as a display of bourgeois
nationalism. Over the preceding quarter century, there had been a
number of debates about whether it was correct for Canadian
Communists to advocate the independence of Canada from the United
States. In 1929, [CP leader] Tim Buck had himself been denounced by
Moscow for putting too much emphasis on the issue. At first Buck had
tried to defend his position. Later, he backed down and admitted the
error of his ways. By the 1950s, the pendulum within the LPP had
swung again, and Canadian Communists declared their opposition to
having Canada reduced to the status of a colony producing raw
materials for the US.[43]

The overriding commitment to Canadian nationalism returned to shape
the outcome of the debates in the Waffle. By the time of the federal
election in July of 1974, the study group members had developed a
collective view in support of the need for a revolutionary socialist
party. They were keen to share this discussion among Waffle members
generally. When the Waffle federal campaign literature was printed, the
word "socialism" was almost absent from the Toronto materials. The
climate of concern, and the felt need for an open assessment and debate,
generated an atmosphere of considerable receptivity to new views and
strategies. Even if many Wafflers did not necessarily agree with the
need for a revolutionary party, they had criticisms of their own and
were eager to have a full and democratic discussion. But this was not to
be.

Ontario Waffle: Leadership Threats and Resignation

At the first Ontario Waffle Provincial Council meeting held after the
federal election, on October 6, 1974, discussion opened with the
announcement that the leadership of the Ontario Waffle, including
several Provincial Executive members, had threatened to resign. The
anticipated and scheduled agenda was not to be discussed. The leadership
had apparently calculated the votes and expected to face a losing
battle. An ad hoc steering committee was formed at this aborted
Provincial Council meeting, which sent out a letter to Ontario Waffle
members to explain what had transpired. As it provides a summary of the
course of events, including a description of a September 14 Waffle
Provincial Executive meeting that pre-figured the October Council
meeting, it is worth quoting in some detail.[44]

There is a crisis in the Waffle. On Sunday, October 6, several
prominent members of the Provincial Executive of the Waffle walked
out of a meeting of the Provincial Council. Those who walked out
included such well-known Waffle spokespersons as Jim Laxer, John
Hutcheson and John Smart. They offered no explanation for their
walk-out. At this moment it is unclear whether or not they have
resigned from the provincial organization. Those of us who remained
elected a steering committee with a representative from every local
present to send you this letter. We felt that all Wafflers should be
informed about this crisis in our movement.

Where did this crisis begin? For many of us, the problems that
have now erupted began last spring when we thought we noticed a
change in Waffle policy. At that time, Bob Laxer presented a paper
on Nationalism (published in Advance, Vol. II, # 2) which seemed to
emphasize nationalism in such a way as to downplay our socialist
politics. In the early summer, some of us were again bothered by the
orientation of the Laxer election campaign in York West — an
orientation characterized, we felt, by a marked de-emphasis on
socialist politics. Out of this came the Hull-McNally letter on the
Toronto election campaign ... . Wafflers throughout Toronto,
Kingston, London and St. Catharines felt that this letter correctly
identified some serious problems in the Toronto campaign. Of course,
many people disagreed with the letter. But on the whole, it raised
some important questions about Waffle strategy — questions that
required much discussion and clarification. As a result, a
wide-ranging discussion of strategy emerged throughout the Waffle.

Most of the members of the Provincial Executive responded to the
debate on strategy with unprecedented hostility. At the September 14
meeting of the Provincial Executive in Brantford, Jim Laxer read a
paper that characterized this discussion as "the constant harassment
of a sterile debate with the Americanized new Left." Laxer implied
that those who raised criticisms were ‘sectarians’ and
"conspiratorial anarchists." Finally, he called on the Waffle to end
this debate. At this meeting, Bob Laxer called for a split in the
Waffle — he argued that a "divorce" and a "parting of the ways" was
necessary in our movement. The Executive then adopted Jim Laxer’s
paper as a report to the October Provincial Council. Section 8 of
this report contained Laxer’s characterization of those raising
criticism and his demand for an end to the strategy debate ...

The letter from the ad hoc steering committee continues to describe
in detail the pre-Council debate, and the steps taken to attempt to
preserve some integrity in the organization in an acrimonious
atmosphere. Ultimately a majority of delegates at the Provincial Council
meeting voted to table a wide array of strategy documents by a vote of
30 to 26. This decision was taken "on the ground that this debate was
just beginning and it should be brought back to every local group so
that they could vote on strategy at the December Convention." The letter
continues:

The leadership, however, saw the debate as fundamentally
anti-Waffle and had suggested both before and during the Council
meeting that they would not stay in the movement if this discussion
continued. Indeed, the threat of resignation hung over the entire
weekend and greatly concerned all the delegates. In light of this
the Ottawa Waffle threatened to leave the movement unless the
Executive report was adopted in its entirety.

As a compromise, the majority of delegates, who opposed the Executive
Report, agreed as an interim strategy to pass all of the Executive
Report except Section 8. The Ottawa Waffle demanded that Section 8 be
passed. The letter continues:

In short, the opponents of the Executive Report were asked to
agree that they were anti-nationalists and American new Left
radicals who do not belong in the Waffle. This demand was completely
unreasonable. When a procedural motion to allow untabling of the
report failed, the Ottawa delegates walked out stating their
intention to become an autonomous local group. They were followed by
members of the provincial executive.

The Ontario Waffle — with Post Office BOX 339, Station E, Toronto, as
its mailing address, was left in the hands of those who remained. This
post office box remains the mailing address of the International
Socialists today.

From the Waffle to the IS: 1975

By the following February, in 1975, when the Waffle had its next
Ontario meeting, those who were still active voted to re-name the Waffle
the Independent Socialists — a concession to a lingering commitment to
left nationalism — later to be changed to the International Socialists.
Between the October Provincial Council meeting and the Ontario Waffle
general meeting in February, the study group, with the aim of dissolving
itself, prepared and circulated two substantial documents. The goal was
to structure a democratic debate within the Waffle about which way to
turn. One document was entitled "Strategy for Waffle", and the other,
the "Revolutionary Socialist Programme."

The "Strategy for Waffle" document stated:

There are many organizations on the Canadian left which see
themselves as leaders towards socialism. This is a mixed bag of
groups, ranging from the Communist Party to the array of sectarian
groups and members of the NDP. These groups have different
strategies and often different and conflicting goals. The strand
which runs through all of them, however, is not what they do, but
what they do not and what they cannot do; that is, they are unable
to provide a link between the day-to-day immediate struggles of
workers on the shop floor and in the offices, and the long term
struggle for socialism. Why are these groups unable to provide this
link, and why do we think we can succeed where others have failed?
In their strategies of working class activity, all of these groups
end up in one of two camps. Either they seek to be ‘where the
workers are at’ in a mechanical way, blindly following bureaucrats
or becoming new bureaucrats themselves; or they attempt to ‘lead’
the class as the self-proclaimed vanguard, falling into the most
absurd ultra-leftism, and ensuring a position of complete isolation.
The former strategy seeks minimal reforms legislated from above; the
latter denounces all ‘reformism’ and calls for revolution today.
Neither strategy encourages the collective, self-conscious struggles
of workers themselves. All of these groups are only able to
substitute themselves — as individuals or small isolated groups —
for the collective struggles of the class itself. It is our
contention that socialism can neither be legislated nor proclaimed
by a self-chosen elite. Socialism can only be achieved by the
self-conscious activity of the working class itself. Socialism is
not simply public ownership; it is workers consciously controlling
the factories, institutions and resources of society through their
own activity by means of their own governing councils. The crucial
link between the immediate struggles on the shop floor and the long
term struggle for socialism lies in the promotion of self-conscious,
independent activity of the working class.[45]

As the "Revolutionary Socialist Programme" stated:

Canada today is a country in which one-third of the population
lives below the poverty line. It is a country in which the wealth,
produced by the labour of working people, is used mainly to line the
coffers of large corporations ... . There is nothing necessary or
inevitable about these conditions. They are not the result of ‘human
nature’; they are the products of the capitalist social system. Not
only can they be altered, they must be altered if humanity is to be
freed from massive poverty and the threat of war. Poverty, war and
economic insecurity are built into this capitalist system ... .The
relentless search for profits drives capitalists to the most
reckless squandering of human and natural resources. The capitalist,
to speed and intensify the work, turns workers into appendages of
his machines. The capitalist avoids ‘unnecessary’ costs such as job
safety, control of pollution, responsibility for his employees’
health; he avoids the human needs of the workers ... . Socialism is
not simply a majority of ‘socialists’ in Parliament. Socialism is an
entirely different form of society. Socialism involves the
destruction of the capitalist state and its replacement by a
workers’ state. Socialism is working class power. Socialist
revolution brings about a new form of popular self-government by the
working class: factory and neighbourhood councils ... Socialism
replaces production for profit with production for social use, for
the satisfaction of human needs ... . Those countries which have had
revolutions but which retain inequalities in income and in which the
workers do not control production are not socialist.[46]

Other sections address the capitalist state, the ideological
apparatus of the ruling class such as the media, the oppression of
women, imperialism, the Canadian state, the crisis of capitalism in
Canada, the NDP, Quebec, the trade unions, the Communist Party of
Canada, the sectarian left, the revolutionary party, and
internationalism.

Much of what was presented in this document written over 30 years ago
is applicable today. Its basic premises display a certain degree of
clarity that allowed those who adopted it to navigate numerous storms
that other left groups, though much larger and more experienced at the
time, could not survive. But the analysis of the Canadian state was
flawed, a reflection of the left nationalist political economy that had
dominated the NDP and the Waffle. As the "Programme" put it, "Canada is
a country dominated by one of the world’s strongest imperialist powers —
the United States — which exercises economic and military control over
our nation." [47]

But the supporters of the "Programme" were also opposed to the
Canadian ruling class. In a section sub-titled "The National Question in
Canada", the Revolutionary Socialist Programme stated:

For revolutionary socialists, there can be no talk of ‘stages’ in
the struggle for independence and socialism in Canada. The struggle
must be one for working class power — for the emancipation of the
working class through the creation of its own state. As
revolutionary socialists, we reject as inadequate all forms of
Canadian nationalism which do not point towards socialism since they
obscure the reality of class conflict in Canada and pose national
and not class solutions. There has developed in Canada, however, a
current of working class nationalism. This nationalism tends to
develop among workers employed by American corporations. In and of
itself, this form of nationalism is inadequate. However, as a
primitive form of rebellion against American bosses, this
nationalism has an anti-capitalist dynamic …[48]

The International Socialists

The legacy of left nationalism proved much more weighty on other
forces on the left. The challenges that lay before activists in the
mid-1970s were myriad, and certainly beyond prediction. But for those
who had a political compass — a way to figure out what was capitalism
and what was socialism — the next months, years and decades were not
only comprehensible but confirmed the necessity of a coherent and
consistent Marxist perspective.

The working class upturn of which the Waffle was a part had peaked by
1975, and the beginning of a period of massive assaults on working class
living standards and the left opened up. The attack on the Waffle within
the NDP proved to be a political first strike against independent rank
and file action in the trade unions, as later attacks took place in
Saskatchewan and BC under NDP governments.

This opened the door to Trudeau’s 1975 wage and price controls
policy, accompanied by a series of unprecedented assaults on trade union
bargaining rights. The Waffle leadership saw their expulsion from the
NDP as a result of their nationalist orientation. Actually it was the
class content, independent rank and file trade union action, that posed
the greatest threat to the trade union bureaucracy that was the backbone
of the NDP.

By the time of the founding convention of the IS, on February 8-9,
1975, the numbers remaining were tiny — about 25 who were prepared to
continue the project. When the first issue of the IS monthly newspaper,
Workers’ Action, came off the presses, there were 12 who would
sell the paper publicly.

The first 15 years of the IS (from 1975 to 1990) were a difficult
time. There were many debates, as the ups and downs of the international
and Canadian left faced the challenges of a new period. But in the end,
the effort to concretize a general understanding of Marxism and apply it
to the Canadian state and the workers’ movement shaped an organization
of modest influence and stability as a new player on the left.

Issues that proved particularly challenging included figuring out how
to relate to the working class with political ideas, and to do this not
just through a mechanistic approach of "industrialization", of sending
students to work in industry. The nature of Canadian imperialism,
before, during and after, the free trade debates and the resurgence of
left nationalism, were also subjects of debate. The oppression of Quebec
and Native peoples, not just as abstract principles, but in the complex
debates about the Canadian constitution forced the IS to take its
commitment to being tribune of the oppressed seriously.

The organization suffered the inevitable bruises of a young movement,
but it did not fall prey to a sense of life-threatening confusion or
defending the indefensible, as did many other currents on the left. When
the Vietnamese so-called socialist state expelled its Chinese citizens,
the IS said the Vietnamese boat people were welcome in Canada while most
of the rest of left denounced them as "petty bourgeois". The IS defended
the 10 million strong Solidarnosc trade union movement in Poland, even
when most of the rest of the left denounced it as the product of agents
of the CIA and the Pope. And the IS did not succumb to the disarray and
confusion that marked the rest of the left when the Berlin Wall fell and
the Stalinist USSR collapsed in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

By 1990-1991, the IS had figured out many basic principles and
positions as they applied to current conditions. But all this still was
not enough to gain influence and to make a difference in the real world
of Canadian politics. The organization had collectively developed habits
necessary to survival in rough waters, holding together in the face of
what often seemed to be nearly insurmountable, incredibly challenging
difficulties. Years of being a small, largely irrelevant organization
had left damaging scars. The survival of the IS came with a price — the
price of an insular, sectarian style of operating. This was an
accommodation to isolation and being marginal, turning what was a
necessity into a virtue.

With Canada’s participation in the war on Iraq in 1990-91, the IS had
to break with this tradition of small group sectarianism, or fail the
test of imperialist war at home. The organization made it through, but
again not without cost. Over time, from 1990 to the present, the
organization moved more securely to new ground. The IS is now an
organization that strives to build a revolutionary socialist alternative
by forging not only a nucleus, or perhaps a catalyst, of a revolutionary
party, but also by helping to build common actions and united coalitions
to fight to build mass movements for change in the here and now.

The IS was started in 1975. But it was not really "founded" then.
Many, many comrades have since joined and helped to truly found an
organization that has come to be modestly respected in contributing to
shaping the course of the left. In some small areas, sections or moments
of struggle within the workers’ movement, there is a sense of being a
little stronger when the IS presence is felt.

Throughout this period, the IS in Canada relied on the support of
sister organizations in the IS tendency internationally, particularly
the Socialist Workers Party in Britain. But the IS in Canada is not part
of a new "International", nor has the IS ever been "instructed" about
what to do or not to do. The direction taken has been mapped by the IS
membership. What ever failures, and what ever small successes, have been
experienced, rests on the shoulders of the comrades in the IS in Canada.

This is a story that stops, but doesn’t end. The tasks ahead remain
far greater than anything that has been experienced to date. There
remains a need to forge a mass, democratic, activist, creative force, a
powerful organization that can play a role in influencing the working
class, and over time, form the basis of a mass revolutionary party.

Footnotes

This was
also a high point of radical change internationally. It included:
the Portuguese Revolution and the successful revolt of the
Portuguese African colonies; the victory of the Vietnamese National
Liberation Front against US imperialism; and the of the collapse of
the US presidency of Richard Nixon and the Watergate crisis of
American politics.

Paul
Kellogg, Downturn: The Origins of the Employers’ Offensive and
the Tasks for Socialists (Toronto: International Socialists,
1988), p. 12

See for
example, Gary Teeple, Capitalism and the National Question in
Canada (Toronto: 1972) and Robert Laxer, ed., Canada Ltd.:
The Political Economy of Dependency (Toronto: 1973).

Kari Levitt,
Silent Surrender (Kingston and Montreal: 1992). For a detailed
discussion of the influence and consequences of the impact of left
nationalism, see Paul Kellogg, "After Left Nationalism: The Future
of Canadian Political Economy", Marxism: A Socialist Annual,
vol. 2; and "Kari Levitt and the Long Detour of Canadian Political
Economy", Studies in Political Economy, 76, Autumn 2005, pp.
30-60.

The late
Dennis McDermott became President of the Canadian Labour Congress in
1978, serving until 1986. For biographical information see "Canadian
Labour Congress"

Hackett,
"Pie in the Sky ", p. 56

Hackett,
"Pie in the Sky", p. 59

New
Democrat, June 1972, p. 1

On the
history of the Canadian Auto Workers’, and its split from the Unite
Autoworkers, see Charlotte Yates, "Unity and Diversity: Challenges
to an Expanding Canadian Autoworkers’ Union", Canadian Review of
Sociology and Anthropology, 35 (February 1998); 93-118; and
From Plant to Politics: Autoworkers in Postwar Canada, 1936-90
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993); and Sam Gindin,
The Canadian Auto
Workers: The Birth and Transformation of a Union. The IS,
unlike the vast majority of the left, did not celebrate the strategy
to split the Canadian section of UAW on a nationalist basis.

Jim Laxer
teaches at York University and continues to be a prolific writer,
though his politics have changed considerably. After the Waffle
experience, he, along with co-founder Mel Watkins, eventually
returned to the NDP.

One of the
leading members of the Waffle labour caucus was Bill Walsh. See Cy
Gonick, A Very Red Life: The Story of Bill Walsh (St. John’s:
2002).

See James
Laxer, Red Diaper Baby: A Boyhood in the Age of McCarthyism
(Toronto: Douglas and McIntyre, 2004).

Mel
Watkins had played an equal role prior to the split from the NDP,
but his influence declined after the split.

Among the
most popular professors, for example, were Robert Albritton and John
Hutchesonn, both of York University.

The study
group members soon became influenced by Lenin and considered
themselves to be working under the principles of "democratic
centralism", agreeing to discuss all issues fully and to come to
collective decisions that would be commonly implemented. In
practice, however, the main activities of the group were simply
collective discussion.

Notes on
Waffle, written by A. Bakan, n.d., personal files, A. Bakan

Notes on
Waffle, written by A. Bakan, n.d., personal files, A. Bakan

See
Advance: For Independence and Socialism, Internal Discussion Journal
of the Ontario Waffle, September 23, 1974, volume 11, no. 4

On the
origins and history of the Socialist Workers Party in the UK, see
Tony Cliff, A World to Win: Life of a Revolutionary (London: 2000)
and Trotskyism After Trotsky: The Origins of the International
Socialists (London: 1999).

Tony
Cliff, "Trotsky on Substitutionism", in Party and Class, pp.
37-41

IS in
Canada was formed years before there were formal international
relations within the IS tendency. For information about the
International Socialist Tendency today, see
www.istendency.net

See Ian
Birchall, Workers Against the Monolith: The Communist Parties
Since 1943 (London: 1974).

Two events
precipitated the exodus of long time party loyalists. The first was
a June 5, 1956, New York Times article reporting the complete
text of USSR CP General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev's speech to a
closed session of the 20th congress of the CP, delivered in
February. Here Khrushchev acknowledged for the first time from a top
Soviet Communist Party post, that Stalin was responsible for major
crimes, crimes that had been dismissed as western propaganda for
decades. The second event was in November 1956, when Soviet tanks
and aircraft mowed over thousands of rebellious Hungarians in the
streets of Budapest. See Jim Laxer, Red Diaper Baby, pp.
164-165.